The electronics industry is striving towards increased performance of their products. This is commonly achieved through higher and higher levels of integration. This has resulted in the use of components (e.g., microprocessors) that dissipate more heat per unit volume. As the number of components increases within a given computer, so does the heat dissipated. This development has not been tracked by an equal reduction in power dissipation for the individual components. Thus on a densely populated circuit board, the power dissipation per area is increasing.
Typically components are designed to work at relatively low temperatures, thus the heat that they generate must be efficiently removed. Traditionally, removal of heat was achieved through the use of a fan, or equivalent device for passing cool air over the components. As the number of components per computer has increased, and the amount heat dissipated per component has increased, traditional fan cooling is no longer sufficient to effectively remove heat. Computer manufacturers have subsequently used additional heat removal devices such as heat pipes, fins, pin fins, etc. to aid in the removal of heat. The paradox of these heat dissipators is that once the component population increases so does the air flow resistance through them. This requires oversizing the dissipators since the cooling flow is not laminar across the circuit board and the more distant components are in effect being cooled by air that has already been heated by components closer to the source of the air stream.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art computer cooling system. A circuit board (10) typically contains a number of high dissipation components (12), and low dissipation components (14). The high dissipation components (12) typically include microprocessors, while low dissipation components (14) typically include capacitors, etc. To remove heat dissipated by the high dissipation components (12), the prior art computer cooling system includes heat pipes (16) mounted on top of the high dissipation components (12). The heat pipes (16) serve to remove heat from the high dissipation components (12) via conduction. The heat conducted to the heat pipes (16) is subsequently removed by a fan cooling air flow (18).
In general, in one aspect, the present invention relates to a computer cooling system, comprising a cooling fluid source, and a cooling duct array adapted to distribute cooling fluid from the cooling fluid source over a plurality of high dissipation components on a circuit board.
In general, in one aspect, the present invention relates to a computer cooling system, comprising a cooling fluid source; and a cooling duct array adapted to distribute cooling fluid from the cooling fluid source over a plurality of heat dissipating components on a circuit board, and a backplane having a bus with at least one port, wherein the cooling duct array is connected to the at least one port with a connector.
In general, in one aspect, the present invention relates to a method for cooling a computer system comprising transporting cooling fluid from a cooling fluid source to a circuit board, and distributing the cooling fluid over a plurality of high dissipation components on the circuit board using a cooling duct array.
In general, in one aspect, the present invention relates to a method for cooling a computer system comprising transporting cooling fluid from a cooling fluid source to a circuit board, and distributing the cooling fluid over a plurality of heat dissipating components on the circuit board using a cooling duct array, and compressing the cooling fluid at the cooling fluid source prior to transporting.
Other aspects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description and the appended claims.